The consequences of social movements

It has been suggested that the committed participant in a social movement undergoes a psychological reorganization. It is clear that his new sense of security and importance is acquired at the sacrifice of autonomy. As a loyal member he tends to let the leaders do his thinking for him, suppressing doubts as to the validity of the ideology and the wisdom of the leader’s decision. He repeats their arguments in a dogmatic fashion; persons who are not in the movement find it difficult to debate with him since they start from different premises. His perception is selective in a different way from theirs. The ideology, for example, may lead him to view all governmental authorities as villains, while the ordinary citizen views them as legitimate leaders, some good, some bad. The end product of this surrender of autonomy may be an altered worldview. Some things taken for granted before becoming part of the movement will never seem the same again, even after leaving the discipline of the movement.

The end products of social movements as collectivities attempting to change the social order cannot be analyzed simply in terms of success or failure. Failure may come as a result of ruthless suppression of the movement or through widespread apathy. A movement may wither away because too few take it seriously and it does not develop enough power to force its program on society. Sometimes the remnants may linger for a long time as a cult, oriented inward toward the gratifications that the members obtain from participation but making no serious effort to change the social order.

Success is most apparent when a movement manages to have its power legitimized as authority. In a successful revolution the social movement becomes the new source of authority and respectability, and opposition to its values is defined as counterrevolutionary. In other instances, the movement achieves power through secession. Failing to compel acceptance of its values in the larger group or society, the members withdraw into a new social system in which they can attempt to implement the values separately from a hostile or indifferent society.

A less obvious form of success is the institutionalization of the values or some part of them. Accepting the legitimacy of the movement’s values, the traditional associations in the society incorporate them into their own values and implement them without a transfer of authority to the movement. Thus the U.S. Socialist Party has seen many of its proposals adopted by the two major political parties and the government without winning a major election or overthrowing the government. Sometimes the social movement itself is institutionalized by being accorded authority as the legitimate custodian of the new values. The movement is then transformed into a bureaucratic association, as happened with the American labour movement of the early 20th century and the Congress Party of India after British rule ended.